Rebuild
by L0necl0ud
Summary: There's nothing to rebuild, nothing worth fixing, just a car to be taken apart, whether or not Sheriff likes it. Whether or not he says goodbye to his broken, dying son.


The office is surprisingly warm, with toffee walls, textured, the lower half being red oak paneling. The floor is composed of the same wood, polished smooth and shiny as a mirror. Plush mats of deep maroon line the floor against the wall, for cars to rest their axles on, whether in pain or while waiting on someone else. There are a couple end tables of like materials, adorned with small pamphlets of information and advertisements. The ceiling light is like that of a home, a simple chandelier with a soft cut wood fan.

If he closed his eyes, he could imagine he was back home. He could feel the fireplace a few feet to his left, emanating warmth with its flames within, and feel his wife as she leans on him, a glass of Chardonnay on the coffee table in front of them, in front of him in the clinic. He can hear the children rushing about in the spacey backyard, in the dying light of evening. Their childish engines revving about, their joyous shouts.

The ear screeching, terrifying clanking of a young engine in the yard.

The ear screeching, terrifying clanking of a young engine in the smaller, patient office right down the hall.

He physically wilts, chrome trim and bumpers resting on the soft may, tires tucked under his frame.

The sound was wrong.

He knew it, wincing.

Everyone else in the lobby knew it, cringing.

It was more than wrong, it was probably deadly.

He wants to be in there, with his son. He's not allowed. Not due to the doctors, he could easily force his way in with his son, being a cop. But he always respected his children, his son, and his son was always oh so indignant. Confident and independent, even in the presence of the hospital he was sure he could do everything on his own, including a check up.

He was the bravest.

The most foolish.

The cop, James, shuffled his way through the informational pamphlets, trying to take his mind off the disturbing sounds only a few yards away. A pamphlet on guided building of a baby car, free of charge. A pamphlet on common car issues, flat tires, a failing fuel pump, a cracked axle, a desperately needed oil change. That one causes James to wince, so he shoves it away. A pamphlet on unwinding, for helpless children, a start over for parents who couldn't support. There was adoption somewhere inbetween, but the whole valiant glory was the unwinding, the donation of car parts.

James is sick now, and his sons engine is clanking again, cracking and snapping as it tries to turn over, and the pamphlets are all shoved away, stuffed under the coffee table beside him. He feels them burning a hole through the wood where they hide. That last pamphlet didn't tell all the causes for unwinding.

But when did anything tell the full truth?

He of anyone should know that. He was a cop, they manipulate information to their advantage all the time.

It's a game of logic and brainwashing. Perhaps one of his least favourite facets of his career.

He was an honest man, and it would eventually get him jobless or sent off to some small town no one cared for.

He gulps, when the doctor calls out his name. He wants to wince, but no one does that here, everyone is strong, strong for the weak, for the actually broken. He was being indefatigable and un-defeatable for his broken son. So he forces himself upright, keeping his tires straight and axle firm, frame even, and he rolls his way down the hall.

The hall is garnished akin to the lobby, if not for the posters boasting the same information as those cursed pamphlets. The doctor is a nice Starline Oldsmobile, probably just as kind as the lobby's projection, but James is biased now. Biased against doctors, he's got an edge on them, on their misinformation.

But it's too late to dwell on that. Right now, he needs to see his son, comfort him and himself, steady them and prepare them for whatever conclusion is to come, even if James knows it already.

Sometimes seeing is believing,

And sometimes hearing is accepting.

He wants to cling to whatever peaceful, ignorant bliss he has left. They both do. And when he enters the room, he can see all the pain his son is in, in how he is sunken into the ground, eyes glazed and teary, how he trembles. And James can only sigh, pull up and push up against his sons small side. He's not brave anymore. Neither of them are, and James no longer has any words to say. There is nothing to communicate, they ran out of words a handful of check ups ago. Now they are running out of hope, a steady leak like a puncture in a gas tank, and they grow heavier every second, leaning on each other. James pulls back from his son, who's panting lightly, and crying silently now. He won't murmur sorry, but James knows that's how he feels. He prides himself on being strong, the best, if anything, he's letting himself down.

James can't comfort him on tat either. His son stopped listening. Months ago.

James gives his son a pat on the side via tyre, and then let's himself be coaxed out of the room by the doctor. Hearing is acknowledging, and hearing the door to the patients room click close is like a death sentence, for who, James knows not, him, his son, both of them.

He wishes his wife could have made it hear. He worries he may faint over onto his side, no one to catch him from crashing through the ground.

Hearing is acknowledging, and now he's hearing everything he suspected. No matter what they tried, medications, altercations, his poor son couldn't hold on to oil. It just leaked out like nothing, dispersed, something, whatever. That's not what mattered anymore. What mattered was it was unfixable, solvable, unhealable, and by the sounds of it, his son was already soon down the path of death.

James hates himself for wanting to cry, for not letting himself break, for wanting to sob and for still hoping he can fix all of this. He wants to solve the unsolvable, doc what the greatest engineers couldn't understand, he wanted to let his son be brave and free again. He wants to find the source, pin point when it all started, the horror and pain and deterioration. Was it when they built their son? Did they skip a step? Was it a faulty part, doomed from the start? A tiny fracture, an injury unheard, felt or seen, that caused this fatal mishap? What happened and how, the key to the puzzle, the father hoped. The father, James, wanted to sink again, tuck his tires and let go, and fall through the ground with no one to catch him.

But he was always being strong for his son, and he couldn't back down now, he had to stay strong on the front line, no matter how he felt.

Later he'd find it cruel, being given such a proposal in such a sudden, broken state of mind.

But it was just that. A broken state of mind.

He wasn't thinking straight, just trying to hold himself together, as if his chrome trimmings might peel off, his body panels fall apart and clash to the ground, too loud, like the sound of his sons grinding, broken engine, dead engine.

Why not send him off to be unwound. It will be a less painful death, and a less unnecessary death. Some parents find closure in it, knowing their child went to the good. It's simple, like organ donations, every part salvageable taken and donated. Or bought. They say donated but James is sure they're sold off, because for some reason it's only the rich cars getting the donors parts.

But whatever.

It's a painless operation, a painless death. Peaceful, and for the good, not just an empty, unlucky death of a young car. It will help others, prevent more untimely, preemptive deaths of youth. It's one for all, one car for the lives of others, all for one, all the death for one poor son.

But that's better than nothing, right?

His son leaves the patient room, they enter a private office, with toys and a secretary and a phone on the wall.

The walls are wallpaper cream and baby blue, the floor white wood. There are bedroom windows along one wall, letting one look out over the city. A beautiful child's room. A room designed to be hopeful and calming, one of new beginnings.

The father cries as he telephoned his wife.

Their son goes off to play with the toys, smiling at the least, in awe at the toys here he has not at home. James is glad, he'd rather his son distracted for this conversation to come. The phone rings, shrill and crude, and then his wife picks up, and her voice is too sickly sweet for this world. They talk for half an hour, a lot of debating. They keep switching sides. One sides with the doctor, the other unsure, mortified at the concept, and then they swap, and they aren't making progress, just fear and terror and tears. They're circling, spiralling down and sharing thoughts and dragging each other deeper, not out of the hole. It's hopeless.

The decision is made, and they hang up.

His son is passed out, surrounded by toys. He looks peaceful, quiet. He looks happy. James hasn't seen him smile stress free in over a month. It's a beautiful view, and he savours it five minutes more. Then reality breaks through again, without humility or a hint of denial, and James hates this room.

And he hates walking up to the receptionist. Requesting his sons doctors. But he doesn't truly hate it, not yet. Because he's in denial. Repeating the doctors words in his brain, his wife's reassurance, an endless loop of truths, or sturdiness, an anchor, grounding that he is doing the right thing.

He has to be.

Why else would it be nationally accepted?

He refuses to wake his son. He doesn't want his last memory to be him saying good bye. He doesn't want to remember tears. He wants to remember seeing his son smiling soft, fast asleep surrounded by toys and joy, without pain. He wants that to be his sons last memory, one of peace and relaxation, playfulness of gentle touch with special toys, oblivious of the bad news.

Forever oblivious, childhood innocence.

And it's not until the kid is being wheeled off, taken behind doors that James, the father, realises. It just words. He uses, just words, all the time. His coworkers do. He doesn't know jack shit. He doesn't know where his son is going, what is going to happen. Just that it should be calm, without pain.

Should be.

And it stabs him, like a bullet shot through his hood, straight into a piston of his own engine. Now he is falling through the ground and back. He's lost and scared, and his son will be terrified when he wakes. And he wants his son back, but he signed the papers, signed his son off like cattle and maybe it's simply stigma, the idea of being unwound being punishment for delinquent youth, or maybe it's because there truly is some horrific truth behind all the shrouded half truths that James is certain is there. Or maybe it's all just blurring together into one huge nightmare as he sits there in the pastel yellow and baby blue kids room, the room of an innocent child full of life to live and give.

And he's sinking, down all the floors of the hospital to the ground floor and further, into the basement.

Maybe there he would find his son. Maybe there he could say goodbye.

Maybe.

Maybe, but he never expected to see his son again, over forty years later, being dismantled, piece by piece, alive and awake.

Never.

For now, he has a family to go home to, tears to wipe, sobs to choke down, and a life to get back to, to rebuild.

Rebuild, not take apart.


End file.
